


spilling out in constellations

by restlesslikeme



Category: Captain America, Captain America (Comics), Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Space, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-03
Updated: 2012-11-03
Packaged: 2017-11-17 15:54:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,065
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/553281
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/restlesslikeme/pseuds/restlesslikeme
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve's been fascinated with the dark ever since Bucky can remember. An AU in which the serum prepares Steve for space exploration, rather than battle.</p>
            </blockquote>





	spilling out in constellations

**Author's Note:**

  * For [weatheredlaw](https://archiveofourown.org/users/weatheredlaw/gifts).



> Works well with [my mix](http://8tracks.com/erikaheather/split-the-evening) for astronauts and their lovers. Can you tell I'm a sucker for lonely space explorers?

i.

They’re twelve when Steve first tells him he wants to be an astronaut. He’s propped up against threadbare pillows, wrapped up in a quilt sitting on the windowsill. “Can you imagine, Buck?” he says, whispering so that his mother won’t hear them and make him get back in bed, his body too frail and sickly for the cold draft that sneaks in through the windowpane.

Bucky, already bigger and less gangly than Steve, sitting on a stack of comic books, smiles a little and gazes out into the night with him briefly.

“Sure, Steve-o,” he says, but he thinks about warm beds and stolen sketchpads, of sneaking into Steve’s room at night or the feeling he gets after a fight, and he doesn’t think he cares much about exploring the cold and the dark.

 

 

 

ii.

Steve spends most of his time researching the space program. When Bucky comes home from working at the lumber yard, Steve is in the kitchen, pouring over books and newspaper clippings, photocopies from the library that he paid for in nickels. 

Bucky doesn’t announce himself right away, just watches instead, watches Steve’s narrow shoulders, tries to figure out if he’s imagining that he can see the notches of Steve’s spine when he bends over closer to read something. 

“Hey Rogers,” he says finally, clearing his throat and pushing back the surge of warmth he gets when Steve turns around and smiles at him. 

“Hey.”

 

 

 

iii.

“They won’t take me,” Steve says quietly, his back to Bucky in the bed that they share. Bucky’s half asleep, almost out enough to miss it completely. “I don’t meet the physical requirements.” His voice is the kind of unwavering that Bucky has always marveled at, the kind of control he’s never possessed over his own emotions. Steve turns over, staring at the ceiling. 

Bucky kisses him because he doesn’t know what else to do, doesn’t have words for the things that he feels. He doesn’t know what it’s like for your own body to be a traitor to your dreams, but he does know how it feels to hold Steve in the middle of December while he coughs and shakes, knows what it’s like to wake up once an hour to make sure Steve is still breathing, and a small secret part of him is so relieved, so grateful that he’ll never lose Steve to the sky, not like that.

Steve’s skin is practically translucent in the lamplight and Bucky presses his mouth over all of it, carefully, slowly, flicking his tongue along the rivers of Steve’s veins.

 

 

 

iv.

“They can fix me,” is what Steve says.

He’s dressed up in the suit his mother bought him, the one he wore to Bucky’s high school graduation three years before, a folder of paperwork tucked under his arm.

“ _They can fix me_ ”, as if something is wrong with him.

“They’ve got a serum. It’s been in testing. They’re going to give it to me, and if it works I’ll be able to go. I passed all the other tests, I just-”

Bucky just takes Steve’s face in his hands and kisses him, hoping that if he does it hard enough or long enough it will make the free-falling, sick feeling go away, that he’ll somehow catch Steve’s excitement.

“Way to go, Space Cadet,” is what he says, even if the only words that keep up coming over and over again in his head are _lab rat_.

Later that night he vomits until his stomach is ravaged and empty, blaming it on a virus going around work when Steve presses a cold washcloth to his forehead.

 

 

 

v.

The syringes they pump into Steve’s body are bigger than Bucky’s hand. He forces himself to watch as the liquid drains slowly from each one, as Steve‘s arms flex against their restrains, his face contorted in pain, his own fingers pushing so hard into the sill under the glass window that he's sure it must be leaving imprints.

On the other side, Steve’s eyelids flicker and he stops moving. They wheel the table towards a closed back room as Bucky surges forward and is caught by the cuff of his jacket by the doctor sent to wait with him.

“It’s okay,” she says, her smile brittle. “It’s expected. They’re taking him somewhere more closed off so that his body can process the serum in peace.”

He wants to ask her how she knows, how many tests there’ve been before this one, but he notices her finger resting on a button on the phone at her hip and thinks about being thrown out while Steve is in here all alone. 

“Can I get you a coffee?” she asks, giving him the same expression as before.

He nods.

 

 

 

vi.

The night before Steve leaves, Bucky buries his hands into his hair and lets Steve fuck him on his back on the livingroom floor. His knees drop back, his legs spread enough that it aches so that Steve can push close into his space. He likes the pinpricks of discomfort amidst the haze of pleasure; it helps him to focus on specific things, on Steve’s panted breath damp against the tuck of his neck, on Steve’s hands- stronger than before but still delicate- closed over his hips, on being so full and complete it makes his head spin.

He watches Steve’s face in the half light, tightening his fingers in the other man’s hair, wonders if he’s still here with him or if he’s already started to float away. Wonders why he isn’t enough to keep him here.

 

 

 

vii.  
The first time Bucky wakes up alone it scares him so badly he stops breathing. The window’s blown open, the cold air creeping along his legs up from his toes, and Steve’s side of the bed is still made. 

For a moment he - irrationally - considers calling Steve’s cellphone, considers listening to the voicemail recording before the beep and leaving a message, “ _Hey, just me, hope everything’s great. Can’t wait to see you again Space Cadet_ ,” but the phone is in the dresser drawer six feet away from the bed and he doesn’t think he could handle listening to it ring through.

Instead he gets up, bare feet padding across the floor (too loud and unsteady, he feels like he’s echoing) and pulls the window shut. 

He doesn’t look up at the stars.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Such a Timeless Flight](https://archiveofourown.org/works/727035) by [barelyjoyous](https://archiveofourown.org/users/barelyjoyous/pseuds/barelyjoyous)




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